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Programming Assignments and Problem Sets

This assignment schedule is preliminary and subject to change. See grading and course / assignment policies.

General Programming Assignment Instructions

The remainder of this guide details the steps you will need to take to be ready to use GitHub to submit your assignments.

Do this once at the beginning of the course

Creating a GitHub Account

If you already have a GitHub account you are willing to use for this course, then you’re done - proceed to the next step.

Otherwise, visit the GitHub registration page and follow the onscreen instructions to register for an account. You will want to select “Free” as your subscription option, and ensure the “Help me set up an organization” box is unchecked.

Do these once per assignment

Starting the assignment

Navigate to your dashboard (to be enabled) and start the assignment.

Selecting your partner

If you are the first of your pair to start an assignment, you will be asked to identify your partner by selecting their name from the shown class roster. Do not select a partner’s name without their permission. Be careful when specifying a partner, as there is no way for you to change this on your own once you have selected one. Submitting will create a Github repository for you and your partner that includes starter code. A link to this repository will be of the form: https://github.com/cos316/<assignment#>-<unique-name>.

If your partner has already selected you for this assigment, you will be shown a link to the same, shared Github repository.

Granting the COS316 Grader permission to your Github (assignment 1 only)

The first time you go through this process, you should be prompted to grant the COS316 Grader permission to access various parts of your Github account. This is required in order to allow instructors to view your assignment files, and to allow the autograder to find your submissions.

Getting access to assignment code

Both partners should accept the Github invitation by visiting the repository on GitHub and clicking the link to accept. You also may get an e-mail depending on your GitHub notification settings.

Cloning (downloading) your repository

Once you have access to this repository, you will want to clone a copy of the repository to your own machine so that you can work on it. From here on, the process is similar to how you would contributed to any other git project hosted on GitHub. Take a look at lecture 3 for an introduction to the git version control system. You can find an interactive tutorial on git at learngitbranching.js.org.

There are two ways to clone your repository:

1. Via command prompt. Open a terminal window using the Git-capable terminal from the first assignment setup. Navigate to the directory you are using for this course.

   Then enter the following command:

   git clone <URL of your assignment repo>

   For example:

   git clone https://github.com/cos316/assignment1-cold-night

   You will need to enter your GitHub credentials to authenticate yourself.

   Alternatively, you can set up SSH with your GitHub account. This can help to avoid git’s authentication prompts for repository operations. GitHub provides a guide on setting this up.

2. Via GitHub Desktop. GitHub Desktop is a graphical Git/GitHub interface for macOS and Windows. You may find it easier to use, especially if you have never used Git or similar version control software before.

   Download GitHub Desktop here. Log in with your GitHub account. (If you are not prompted, you can do this manually from File -> Options).

   Then choose File -> Clone repository and select the repo from the list, or enter the URL manually.

Pushing (submitting) to get online feedback

To receive feedback on your submissions, you will need to push them to GitHub. If you already know how to do this, you may skip this section.

Editing and saving files in your repository locally does not automatically save these changes to GitHub.

Saving changes to GitHub is a two-step process. First, you will have to commit your changes to the local copy of the repository you downloaded, and then you have to push these commits to the remote copy of the repository, hosted on GitHub.

As before, there are two ways to do this:

1. Via command line. To commit your changes, execute the following command from within your cloned local copy of the assignment repository:

   git commit -a -m "<brief summary of changes>"

   This will add all local changes to this commit. Instead of -a, consider using git add to select changed files you want to include in your next commit. Lecture 3 expands on how using git can aid you during the programming assignments.

   Then, to push your changes to the remote repository hosted on GitHub:

   git push

2. Via GitHub Desktop. Select the changes you would like to commit using the change list on the left, and enter a description of the changes in the text box on the bottom left. Then click Commit to master.

   To push your changes to the remote GitHub repository, click the Push button in the top toolbar, next to the Current Branch dropdown. If someone else has made changes to the repository since the last time you pushed, you may first need to fetch or pull these changes, which is done using the same button.

Viewing test results

Every time you or your partner pushes a change to your GitHub repository, your submission will be graded as it is at that moment in time, and a snapshot of your results will be saved on GitHub as a comment on that commit.

To view these comments (for either your most recent submission or any past submission), click the X Commits button at the top of your repository’s Code view, where X is the number of commits made so far. Then, click on the comment button for the commit you would like to inspect, and you will see your results.